CarCast+Edmunds - Just how fast is the new Corvette ZR1?

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My dad's study.

You go back to your parents' house,

and there's a picture of me and the queen as you walk into the house.

Okay.

It's got that nice older person's aesthetic going on.

I know it's a little blurry behind you,

but is that three pictures of you as a baby?

No, that's my niece.

Oh, I can't tell from here.

You know, when you go home and you see the parents,

you kind of start to pick out things back.

I was like, where's the baby pictures of Alistair back there?

There are none.

I can't see any baby pictures of me in here, actually.

That's my niece when she was about four.

She's 25 now.

You know those kind of stage photographs that people,

I guess people still do them, don't they?

But you don't use stage photographs,

and you're sitting on a kind of,

you know, what looks like a fake fur rug

for no reason in particular.

Yeah, you go to like a J.C. Penney or a Sears or something.

I think people do it now, but they just bring their pets.

Yeah.

We're just a random collection of toys that,

I don't know, it's nice to be,

I've just come back to the UK for a weekend

to see my mom's not doing so well.

So I came back the weekend to be a good son,

hopefully, and just ordered the,

I've just ordered my king prawn,

king prawn, tandoori, gel,

because being in the UK,

you have to have curry, the national dish of the UK now.

Yeah.

Coming in an hour's time.

Okay.

Well, still coming off of a SEMA week.

You guys have been,

thank you tuning into some of the SEMA interviews

that we've been putting out.

I know the audio is kind of little all over the place.

There's background noise and some are a little quiet,

some are a little loud.

And it's just kind of the nature of trying to jam

in a bunch of interviews with a mobile setup

into a Zoom recorder and just doing it as one person.

So it's a little hectic,

but there's some fun interviews there for sure.

Some that were new, just people I haven't met before,

and I try to work in a few new companies like Escort

and Cobra, Radar Detectors,

and the guy from Rockford Foskate.

He was a great interview.

The Ring Brothers interview is up,

and there's more to come.

And what I've been doing is instead of taking the,

so some of the episodes may have two or three interviews in it,

but for the YouTube videos,

I think I'm going to be taking one interview at a time

and putting them up there.

So the YouTube videos won't have to be 40 minutes long.

You can grab 15 or 20 minutes of each interview.

So the Rockford Foskate one is up on the YouTube channel.

If you guys want to check that out,

and I try to grab some B-roll of the products

and stuff that we were talking about as well.

So when we get to some of the builders,

I try to grab some B-roll of the cars that we are talking about.

So a little bit more of a visual component to it this time.

And again, a little hectic.

There's the booths, the cars.

They've got tons of people around it.

So it's not quite as slick as some of the,

or as all of the Edmunds videos.

But we had a good time and it was fun.

And some of the more stories of, you know,

after parties and things like that,

you can catch that on the Shift and Steer podcast.

Brad Fanshawe and Aaron Hagar and I

rolled around to see some friends

and see some bands and went to Pete Brock's house.

Pete Brock celebrating his 89th birthday.

So we had a nice big cake for him.

And it sounds like you had all the fun.

I was there for a day.

I told you to stay, but you were like,

no, no, sir, business is business.

I just come in and I work and I leave.

Yeah.

I hosted a panel on the future of automotive technology,

which was, which was fun to do some great, great guests.

But I think the big thing for me about the SEMA is,

you know, most of my day-to-day work is in, you know,

with manufacturers, you know, launching new product

and shopping advice and all that.

But you just get a extraordinary sense of scale

of the aftermarket.

And, you know, just think,

I'm the Las Vegas Convention Center.

If you've never been is a huge, huge place.

And this is where the whole held the CES consumer

electronics show in January, this massive global event.

And SEMA fills it.

And then you have all of the car parks as well,

with stuff going on.

And it's kind of mind-blowing just how much money is spent.

And I was walking around and looking at a lot of the,

like the smaller stalls and there's a lot of people doing,

there's a lot of, a lot of stalls around like wrapping

cars and different effects and everything else.

And, you know, you did look and thinking,

how are you, you know,

how are you justifying all this expense?

But the return on investment must be there.

It can't just be an ego play.

So I thought it was an amazing,

it's always an amazing show.

And it's a real sort of sense of just how big that scene is

in America.

And I love all the kind of variation as well that you go

from kind of roof tents over here to vehicle wrapping

over here to exhaust.

And there's a lot to, a lot to see.

And it's always in theory it's a trade show,

but it always has this slight kind of, you know,

there's always a few consumers who manage to sneak in.

Yeah.

So first, yeah, keep in mind that it is a trade show.

There's still a bunch of media and then they do sell

tickets to the public ahead of time for Friday only.

Those are the purple lanyards,

the purple badges that are walking around.

But yeah, so like if you are, you know,

a new PPF company or something or some kind of wrap company,

presumably you're trying to set up meetings ahead of time

with potential installers and retailers of that product,

not just have the, you know, the ShamWow booth

and you're doing the demos of stuff, you know,

like it's just not just that.

So, and the companies that I spoke to said, you know,

it felt like it was a little bit lighter,

but they still got all their meetings done.

So it was just a little bit easier to get around.

I want to say SEMA came out and said it was 153,000 people

and previously it was like 160, 161,000 people.

So I don't know, did I feel the difference

of that six, 7,000 people?

I don't know, maybe, because it seemed a little bit easier.

I think the problem with all these things is just,

you know, it is such an expensive thing to do,

not just the physical cost, but all the time

and everything else.

I mean, I go to that show,

bringing in January as a CS controller,

consumer electronics show,

which again is technically another great show,

but that's a global thing.

And then you go back to Vegas the end of January

for the NADA, which is the National Dealer Association show.

And that's another one of these kind of...

That quite is fun.

I suspect there are still some fun after parties again.

I never get to go to those.

But the, yeah, the dealer show is also huge.

And you know, the automotive industry is so big

and there's just so much money, you know,

just so much money involved.

It's such big ticket items that, yeah,

it's always good to go and see this.

You always meet interesting people.

You know, but you keep in mind that, you know,

you get out to the SEMA show,

usually you're doing like a panel or something,

so you're out for kind of a short period of time.

Maybe you get a day, half a day to walk around.

You're still at the SEMA show,

where all of the fun aftermarket stuff

is the performance stuff, all the builders.

But the Apex show goes on at the same time.

And it's in another one of the buildings.

It's in like one of the hotels.

The Apex show is aftermarket parts as well,

but it's mostly the replacement parts that you find.

If you're going to your, you know,

O'Reilly auto parts or auto zone and you need a starter

or you just need, you know, a relay or something

or, you know, a stock generic, you know,

direct replacement like radiator, that's all there.

And admittedly, it's a lot of foreign companies,

like because we get a lot of, you know,

parts from China and stuff.

There's a lot going on over there at Apex,

but that's a whole other world.

Excuse me, is different displays and stuff.

A company like Magnaflow exhaust.

We're partners with Magnaflow.

I do a lot with them for many, many years.

What we see at the SEMA show is the Magnaflow

performance exhaust booth, right?

They have some really cool builds there.

They have their, you know, their celebrity signings

and stuff, but they have another booth

at the Apex show because Magnaflow is one

of the largest manufacturers of direct replacement

catalytic converters.

As a matter of fact, the catalytic converter business

is more than double the revenue,

double the size of their performance exhaust business

and they're the most successful

performance exhaust business right now.

So it's just a massive, massive business.

When I go down into Oceanside and tour their plant,

it's fun to like walk around and see the exhausts

being built, but it's like double the size

of the building just making catalytic converters.

Like that's just a massive thing.

So yeah.

So the Apex show is often forgotten

unless you're doing business there because it just doesn't have like.

It's a proper business.

It is.

It's very much like the trade show portion of it.

So this week, of course, is the LA Auto show.

Next Thursday is the media day.

I presume you're going down.

I'm just going to be there.

I will be there and some people ask

if I was going to be grabbing some content

and doing some interviews and I said,

Alistair, we'll do that in your team.

I mean, I don't think it's going to be a big show.

The big Korean, the Korean brands are kind of propping up the auto show.

So Hyundai, Kia, they've got a lot going on.

I think Lucid's got a little something, but there's not,

you know, there's not, if you look at the press conference list,

there's very few.

So I think it's the LA show in recent times

become more of a consumer show.

It's become less about the big media setup and the big unveils

of cars and everything else that they used to be.

Now it's, you know, it's a good opportunity for Angelenos

to go down, kick a few tires.

You know, you're not getting that kind of dealer experience

where somebody's kind of jumping on you to try

and sell you a car.

It's an opportunity to walk around the floor,

see lots of different cars in one place.

You know, maybe take the family and have a fun day of it.

So I still think it's got a lot of value there.

It doesn't feel to me like it's going to be a big media

event, but, you know, there's a few things going on

around it as well, which always make it.

But you know, I want to say, if I remember correctly,

the media day was two days years ago.

I remember being like a Wednesday and Thursday or something.

There was more press conferences and stuff,

and now it's kind of into one day.

But, you know, and for us, that's kind of like,

we're looking at the schedule going,

can we get to all the events and you have a team

that's like, who's going to this press event?

Who's going to that press event?

Are you trying to grab an interview?

And then we sort of come back here and do a recap of it

on the podcast as you guys publish all of the articles

and things like that.

But, yeah, as you pointed out,

it's a great show to go to if you're thinking

about getting a new car and you want to see stuff.

And if you're driving in even from Arizona or Vegas

or anywhere, that's a fantastic show to go to,

to see the cars, speak to some reps,

open the doors, kick the tires, get in it, sit in it.

Is it comfortable or not?

You're right, without sort of the tension

and overhead of the dealer experience.

Yeah, and you're not having to walk from lot to lot

and dealer to dealer.

It's all there under one roof.

So that's, you know, as one executive from a car company

put it to me, you know, it's more from being these kind

of big expensive spectaculars into kind of cars and carpets.

Yeah.

And, you know, they don't want to spend $20 million on a stand

anymore, but it's still important to get people in

and there's still some.

Yeah.

Awesome.

Interesting.

Keira will have the new Telluride there.

We've had a sneak peek, look at it.

Look at it.

And they're doing this kind of drip feed of information.

So that initially it was all about the design.

Then they're going to release some more information

and blah, blah, blah.

We've had a sneak peek.

They've already already shown it.

We know we've already been able to publish photographs of it.

Yeah.

I'm going to bring that up.

Let's take a look at that.

Yeah.

This is, um, this is at the LA show.

And I think it's a really interesting.

Telluride, when it first came out a few years ago,

it really caught everybody by surprise.

In fact, I think it caught people at Keir by surprise

because they'd never really done a big three row family SUV.

It was a bit of a stretch for the brand.

And if you remember back then, they did the Stinger,

the sports sedan, and that was a breakthrough car

that took Keir into a new era.

And the Stinger was well received,

but it was the Telluride that actually made the breakthrough.

Because suddenly people were saying,

hang on a minute, this is a really nice three rows,

spacious, comfortable.

And there's only been like a handful of moments in my career

where you get a vehicle that just, just hits the sweet spot.

It's not that it's particularly radical or innovative.

It's not doing anything that you haven't seen before,

but it just kind of gets everything right.

And the Telluride was nose and suddenly you could get this

really great car for under 40 grand.

And if you look at the price today, it's still,

I think with destination still drops in under $40,000.

And so this is, this is version two.

It's grown a little bit.

And they've also got, you know,

they went big mid way through the life cycle of the previous one

in giving it more of a kind of off-road chic.

And now they're launching the new one with either the X-Pro

version, which is designed to look a bit kind of tougher

and overlander-ish.

And then the rest of the range,

which I actually prefer to look of, it's a bit more understated.

The X-Pro has got this big plastic grille.

The rest of the range is a little bit more,

for my eyes, a bit more elegant.

And then inside it looks more like the Kia EV9,

the electric version.

Very kind of simple aesthetic, big, you know,

big sort of long strip of a screen with all the information.

I mean, I think it's going to be a,

I think it's going to, you know,

the Telluride has already been a great car

for a number of years.

This is a genuinely new one.

And I think it'll do really well.

I just hope the price doesn't go up too much.

You know, I think if we can,

if they can get this in for 40 grand,

then I think they'll sell a, they'll sell a billion in them.

I think it looks, I think it looks great.

Certainly this rear view,

everyone's going to mistake it for a Range Rover.

I mean, even the tail lights screen Range Rover at this point.

And it's a little too on the nose, I think.

I mean, it looks sharp because the Range Rover looks good, but...

So Ryan, Ryan,

Brian Gregor in the team who wrote this story

was telling me a little anecdote.

And you always, like when you hear it from the Kia team,

you know, you always have to take these things

with a bit of a pinch of salt.

But he was telling me that obviously the design for this car

was probably frozen, you know, four or five years ago,

perhaps a little bit less, somewhere between three and five years.

So, and it takes that long from design freeze

to then effectively build, you know, build the car.

So he was told by the Kia designers that they brought,

they basically froze the design of the new Telluride.

And then two months later, the new Range Rover came out

and they were like, oh, that looks a lot like our car,

particularly from the back.

Yeah.

And that was it.

And of course now, you know, three or four years on,

everybody says, well, it looks like the Range Rover.

But they are adamant that the two kind of were developed

side by side.

Sure.

But it doesn't change the fact that Range Rover was out first.

They beat them to market with that look.

And now everyone's going to say,

I don't care when you designed it,

it still looks like a Range Rover.

Well, and of course the great irony is that the sister car

to the Kia Telluride, the Hyundai Palisade,

which is already out,

looks like the previous generation Range Rover.

And this one looks like, particularly from the rear,

looks like the current generation car.

I mean, to be fair to Kia, the Telluride's rear end

already looked a bit, it didn't look massively dissimilar

to this to start with.

So maybe Range, no, but anyway.

And also very amount of Range Rover starts at what?

100, what are they at that moment?

120,000 or something?

So it's basically three times the price of the Telluride.

Yeah.

I was going to ask like,

what are the price ranges of a Telluride?

These are pretty nice.

I mean, the current one starts at about 30,

with destination about 38, I think, under 40.

So I mean, I expected to go up a little bit.

It's got a little bit bigger as well.

So let's say it starts at 40.

So it's generally, it's going to probably be 40 to 60.

Okay.

Which is, you know, it's still a,

I mean, I'm not saying it's not a lot of money,

but when you think the average transaction price is now 50 grand,

you know, it's a lot of car for the money.

And that's always been the appeal.

The other thing I would speculate is that they will have,

there's a Palisade hybrid.

It would be madness of Kia not to do a hybrid version.

We much prefer the hybrid Palisade to the normal Palisade,

just from all round performance and economy and everything else.

So I think that's going to be an important car for them as well.

I'm thinking the Palisade,

the hybrid is about two grand more than the standard car.

So if Kia has a similar pricing strategy then, you know,

and it's nice.

There's some differentiation.

The Palisade feels a bit more conservative,

but the Palisade's got quite a different look.

Kia's got a little bit more rugged, a little bit more kind of,

you know, a little bit more sporty perhaps.

You know, but Telluride now is super important vehicle for,

for them, you know, for this brand.

It's like, it's, you know, such a success.

And, you know, there was lines to get them.

There was markups on a Kia Telluride.

It's just kind of a, you wouldn't even think about it going,

you know, they can't make them fast enough.

It seemed like.

Also made in America, you know, a lot of the cars,

you know, there's a lot of the challenges at the moment with the Taras,

things like the Ioniq 5 made in Korea, the Hyundai Ioniq 5,

but the Telluride made in America.

So that's going to be a big bonus for them as well.

Okay.

So let's, let's take a quick break and then we'll talk about

the insane and borderline unattainable.

We'll be right back.

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Okay, let's talk about Corvette ZR1.

We've been teasing this for a while.

You guys have been working to get your hands on one

and get it out to the UDRAGs.

I'm excited about that.

Looking at some of the clips and videos that have popped up,

you were also very excited about that.

Let's, you know, I mean, this thing is insane.

We knew it was going to be insane,

and I'm not sure we were quite prepared for it.

Like you had some ideas on it,

but some of the numbers that you sent me are,

I don't even know how to explain them.

Like this thing, talk about bang for the buck.

Yeah.

I mean, obviously I'd driven the ZR1 at the Circuit of America

as earlier in the year.

There's that videos on our YouTube channel too,

but this was the UDRAGs.

We really wanted to get the car there.

And we had a lot of fun.

If you watched the video,

our head of video, Brendan Thomas,

really took one for the team and dressed up in a blow-up

chicken suit.

It's amazing what you can get on Amazon for 40 bucks.

Yeah.

Actually, this thing is quite interesting

from an engineering perspective.

I had a little compressor in it to keep it afloat.

You actually have batteries,

and it has like a little compressor to keep the air

in the suit.

To keep it inflated?

Yes, keep it inflated.

And the reason we had to have the chicken suit

is because, and we explained this in the film,

we went around the world,

and I mean the world,

and said,

would you like to go up against the ZR1?

And everybody basically said no.

There was one brand that said yes,

and then GM went,

oh, I'm not sure about that.

And the difficulty for us is we can't magic cars.

So unless you start going to private owners

and everything else,

which I wouldn't rule out for the future,

but it's,

there were some challenges with going down that route.

You know, we can't magic cars.

So in the end,

we were left with nobody,

with no head to head.

And so we opened up after we do this,

and then we said,

you know, everybody wants to see it.

No, I'll get past it.

So what the hell?

Let's do it anyway.

So we came up with the chicken suit

as a bit of a foil

and to make the point

that nobody wants to take it on.

So actually,

this brings up a good question though

before we get into the numbers.

The process of doing the U-Drag videos,

you guys want to be fair about it.

Like, I don't think you have to go to the manufacturers

and say,

do you want to participate in the U-Drags video?

We're going to put you up against this competitor car.

If you guys can source the car,

not necessarily for them

or it's one in your own fleet,

you can kind of do what you want.

But you do put the word out there

to the manufacturers and say,

do you want to participate?

How do you feel about this?

Like, right?

Like, there's a little bit of,

yeah, I mean, look back to, to be honest,

I don't mind calling this out.

You know, Ford,

Ford wouldn't give us a Mustang

because they have always been nervous about,

well, if the Mustang gets beaten by X or Y,

then it looks bad.

I mean, this is the,

this is the,

the bit of our game that the public doesn't see

is that, you know, we rely,

because we don't just,

if you go down like the,

get a borrow car from a private individual,

you can do that.

But the reality is for kind of production,

like we're doing,

you also get into a lot of insurance issues and blah, blah, blah.

It's not the easiest thing in the world to do,

particularly on a very high value vehicle.

And also we want to be fair to the manufacturer.

So we always want a representative example.

But we have also on occasion,

and the Mustang is a good example of this.

Ford wouldn't give us one.

So we bought one.

And so, you know,

and then we supercharged it

and followed that story.

So, you know,

obviously if we go out and buy the vehicle,

you know,

publish and be damned.

Yeah.

But in this case, you know,

we don't have the financial firepower,

shall we say,

to go out and buy a Ferrari or a Lamborghini

or whatever else you need.

That's got a thousand horsepower.

Or even just a,

some of the specialty companies,

like you, Zinger and Rimac and,

you know, like it's just,

you know,

only a handful of those things exist.

And where do you get one?

Do you try to find the client?

Like, you know, like there's...

We've talked to Zinger.

You know,

there are road friends in Southern California.

So, you know,

these conversations happen all the time.

But it was kind of okay.

So the reality is we couldn't,

because the other problem is

we need it on a certain day.

And, you know,

these cars are very important.

But anyway,

we wound up with the ZR1 on its own.

And we did worry about the video.

And we said,

he's just going to look exciting

and everything else.

But in the end,

it's interesting reading the commentary.

People would love to see a head-to-head, of course,

but I think this car is so extreme.

And if you watch the video,

the performance is so violent

that it kind of carries it on its own.

It's like that movie star

that can carry it without a co-star.

And it was mega.

I mean, the numbers that it pulled

are staggering,

zero to 16, 2.7 seconds.

Wow.

Water in 10.

But the one that really stood out for me,

I'm going to double check my notes.

I want to make sure I don't call this out wrong.

The one that really jumped out for me,

max cornering G,

so max lateral grip.

I noticed this in the video.

1.38, which is extraordinary.

I mean, it's a grippy surface.

It's an airfield.

So it's a grippy surface.

So that helps.

We pull more lateral grip there

than we do on our test track,

which has got,

which is designed as a test track,

not an airfield.

So it's not as grippy.

So, you know,

we do see a slight difference

in the numbers there.

But even so,

1.38 G is pretty extraordinary for a road car.

First of all,

running the quarter mile in 10 seconds flat

and, you know,

and it's not a drag strip prep course.

Like it's,

it's a bit of a grip,

but, but it's not,

I should be clear like relative to road tarmac.

It's probably,

it's probably on the grippier side,

but this is not in any way a prep surface.

And all we do to the car,

we will warm the tires up,

so they're at temperature.

So we're not running them cold.

And we then run,

I mean, in the CR1's case,

we had a chat with the development team

and said,

basically what would you do?

And they gave us some settings

which they would,

they would recommend.

And we tried them out

and they did hold up.

You know, we,

with this grippy,

because you can actually go in

and manually configure the slip

and the RPM and everything else.

There's a lot of sophistication

built into the launch control.

And they gave us like,

you want 10% slip,

you want,

I think it was 3200 RPM,

which is quite low,

you know,

because of course it's rear wheel drive.

So zero to 16,

2.7 quarter in 10

on an unprepped surface

and only rear wheel drive

is pretty astonishing.

It seems like it hooks.

Like it hooks.

It hooks.

It's very drama free.

I mean, inside,

it's like, wow,

this thing's fast.

You know, you feel it,

but it hooked.

The launch control does an amazing job.

And then,

yeah,

and then through the quarter

and then obviously it's mega under brakes.

And what I think what was striking about it

and Jonathan,

I both felt this is

we thought it was going to be

a bit of an animal.

And yes,

we were running with

the performance traction management

in what they call sport one.

So we were using

the electronics a little bit.

But even so,

you know,

this is not,

I wouldn't say it's an easy car to drive.

It's not an intimidating.

It's brutally fast.

And it's a mid-engined hypercar.

Yeah.

But it's not as full on

as you might think it would be.

In some ways,

we have driven a 9-11 GTS,

the hybrid car recently.

And in some ways,

that's hot.

That's more lively.

You know, it's,

they use the electronics really well

to kind of get a grip on it,

just because they've had to.

But the basic fundamentals

are so strong.

I mean,

that mid-engined set up,

so fair RS,

tires,

all the arrow,

you know,

there's a lot in your favor.

And both Jonathan and I

were really impressed,

not just how fast it was,

but how good it felt doing it.

Yeah.

Okay.

Let's talk about the leaderboard.

I'm going to bring it up.

I should say also

why you're doing that.

We talked to,

we obviously,

GM's engineering team

were pretty interested in the result.

They like the figures.

It's, you know,

we don't do it for their benefit,

but it was interesting that they,

they were pretty impressed

with the numbers that the car ran.

Yeah.

Which, you know,

took us a comment,

but it was,

I mean,

the speed across the line as well

was 159.6,

so we're doing like 160 miles an hour

coming across the finish line.

Yeah.

And still pulling.

All right.

Anyway.

All right.

So I don't want to go from the top down.

I'm going to,

let's review the leaderboard

because we haven't seen it in a while.

GR Corolla.

It's kind of the bottom there.

Yeah.

55.

Is this the full list

or do you ever eliminate something from that?

No, it's the full list on this surface.

The first ever one we did

was actually a different venue.

I think this is the full.

So I think we,

we discounted those

just because they,

we wanted to be consistent.

Yeah.

Okay.

So,

interesting that a Raptor R

has beaten so many vehicles

on that list.

Raptor R, number 47 on the list.

Civic Type R, 46.

Let's see.

We'll just skip over that fisker of

Durango SRT Helicat 43 on the list.

Must say Maki performance.

I remember just was saying about cars that are tricky.

Yeah.

I mean, that thing just,

I just remember driving that.

I mean, all violence and under braking,

moving around a little bit,

so much weight.

Which one?

The Durango?

Yeah, the Durango.

And all you have to do

is basically treat the corner like a V,

get it turned,

and then just get it back on the,

on the gas.

And of course it's all wheel drive,

so it actually hooks up pretty well.

But yeah, that was a,

like a hang on to it car.

I'm just going to pick out a few from the list,

but the Maki GT performance,

I actually thought that was a little quicker.

Yeah.

That car struggles a little bit,

if I remember rightly with.

Oh, it has to be like 100% charged

to the right temperature.

It was like too many.

The stability control works and everything else.

That, yeah, that, that,

that wasn't the best,

you know, best performer.

CT4V Blackwing.

I like that car.

That car is cool.

I like that car.

I prefer the CT5.

I do too.

I like the bigger one,

but the CT4 is cool.

It's still a fun car.

They massively underrated those calories.

Do you recall when you,

when you drove the CT4V,

if that was the automatic or the stick?

That was the auto.

And then the Rivian,

this launch edition,

that wasn't like a quad motor or something, right?

No, that's the,

I believe that's the tri-motor.

That was 38 on the list.

Tesla Model Y performance,

35 on the list.

Yeah.

And there's a new one imminent.

Dark horse, 32 on the list.

This is, we talked about this previously.

That's the non-supercharger.

Yeah, before he did the supercharger.

Still faster than a M2 manual.

Yeah, still faster than a manual M2.

Still, I mean,

Dodge Challenger Black Ghost.

That was,

that was all show and not a lot of go.

Yeah.

But the Charger Daytona Scat Pack,

that's the EV, right?

That's the EV, yeah.

That's the one everybody remembers on regular listeners.

That was the one that tried to kill me under,

oh, that's a bit extra.

Yes.

And it still was 30 though.

I found dramatically under breaking, shall we say.

30 on the list.

BMW M2, that's a good car.

AMG C63 S

performance.

There's too many letters in that one.

I'm going to skip that one.

Yeah.

That was that.

That's the four cylinder.

That's the one that nobody.

Yeah.

The EQ E AMG.

That was probably the funniest,

because that thing looks like an Uber.

There's nothing,

apart from yellow calipers,

there's almost nothing that

says sports car about it.

And it's so fast.

The Mercedes, yeah.

The EQ E AMG.

It's kind of egg shaped.

The QE, the Kia.

Yeah.

And the QE V6 GT is only

0.4 seconds slower to the quarter

than the Corvette Stingray.

I mean, it's that fast.

Right.

So here we are 25 on the list.

Corvette Stingray.

We love that car.

That's a great all around car.

It's kind of the bargain of the lifetime, right?

And it's a nice,

it's a great everyday sports car for sure.

And this one that you guys bought

initially, this was like,

I don't know,

what was it like the 60 or $62,000 version?

I don't think you can get a Stingray

for that much anymore, but.

At the time we,

we had expect it was,

I can't remember what I told my head.

It was a little bit,

we had the base model,

but then we put on the,

we basically expect it in the way

that most people would.

So I think we had the sports,

we had the sports kit on it

and a couple of other things.

So it was a little bit more,

but yeah, that,

we loved that car.

We had that car for a couple of years.

That was a great car.

So M4 competition basically ties it.

Once we're down to like top 25,

where we're getting into,

you know, we're getting into really serious,

you know, serious performance.

Right.

And some of these cars

are getting pretty expensive too.

Right.

So we have M4 competition,

Bentley Continental GT Speed.

Here's our CT5,

the Blackwing 22 on the list.

I think that's a cool car.

A friend of mine just bought one of those cars.

He's just like,

I don't care if it's old or whatever.

He's just like, I love it.

Yeah, I like that car.

I like that car a lot.

Tesla Model 3 performance.

Yeah, we know that car's going to perform

well 21 on the list.

On the list,

Lucid Air Grand Touring.

This is the kind of the base.

No, the Grand Touring is the,

well, that was the car that we owned.

So you've got the pure,

it's the sort of upper-range one.

Not the all-out performance one,

but it's the sort of mid-range.

Like the luxury version.

Yeah.

That's still the,

what's it called, 800 horsepower

getting on that bike?

Yeah.

Geez.

But the one thing about that,

that was on basically long-range tires.

Yeah.

So that kind of held it back a little bit.

Accurate NSX.

Yeah, kind of.

The Type S.

I love that car, 19 on the list.

M3 Competition.

Maserati MC20.

Yeah.

17 on the list.

It's a 14 car, yeah.

Ionic 5N.

Definitely embarrassed the last 10 cars

we just went through,

because what a little performer.

That's amazing.

Just that car is,

that car is so much fun.

M3 CS.

AMG GT 63.

That's a cool car.

It's a sharp looking car.

And then Supercharged Dark Horse.

Took it from what?

25 or something?

28 on the list?

Up to 13 by adding the Supercharger?

Yeah.

Huge, huge difference.

Well, it's now winning a quarter in 11.5.

It's, yeah, it's made a huge difference.

There's more to come from that car.

Amazing how adding the Supercharger

brought everything else to the next level.

Now you really get to use the tires

and get to, you know,

because it's just so much more power

that you can push that car more to a limit.

Like if you think about,

you look at the numbers here and you go,

the Dark Horse might be a little over-engineered

and underpowered.

And then when you add the Supercharger,

now you get to use, you know,

its grip and its handling.

Yeah.

The only thing it needs now is a better gearbox.

Right.

But you guys bought the automatic?

Yes.

There's Kawasaki Ninja in there.

I don't know how that's not getting there,

but okay.

Kawasaki, I can do that.

Well, we had that.

We ran that.

I mean, that thing in a straight line, unbelievable.

Who rode that thing?

I mean, the quarter in 9.8.

Yeah.

That's a rocket in the corner.

Who rode that thing?

That was a drag racing expert.

And I'm completely and shamefully forgetting his name.

So I do.

Okay.

GT511 on the list,

still one of the most fun cars

and kind of the inspiration

for U-Drax in general.

Right.

So everybody loves that car.

M8 Competition Coupe.

I just thought we saw that was a beautiful car,

just kind of a sharp car.

I think that's going to be a good second on by

because that I was looking at the other day,

just purely out of cost curiosity.

The Grand Coupe,

which is the four door version.

Yeah.

And I think, you know,

it feels all about Panamera or any sort of thing.

And they're down to like 50, 60 grand.

Because I just think they're one of those cars

that nobody really thinks about.

They fly under the radar.

You can get like a nice 20, 30,000 mile Grand Coupe

for 50, 60 grand.

That's, I mean, the running costs are going to be high,

but that is a lot of car for that money.

Number nine on the list is the Corvette E-Ray.

A car that I think overall you guys were feeling like

didn't feel as special.

Like, you know, especially when like zero six is coming out,

but the great performing car,

probably a lot of bang for the buck,

but just kind of missed something.

Well, it didn't really connect with customers.

It's a little bit watched this space

because the E-Ray kind of comes back into this series.

Yeah.

And both Jonathan and I were kind of,

John and the drive, you know,

drives alongside me were both kind of blown away

about how good the E-Ray was.

So we kind of feel like all the excitement was around the zero six

flat-plane crank, you know,

all the great sounds and great sounds and anything else,

but the E-Ray is a really good car.

It's, it doesn't necessarily get the love that the zero six does,

but, you know, in particular, you know,

the way that it corners,

the way that it gives you that traction out coming out of the corner.

There's a, you know, it's, it's, it's a good thing.

And listen, 1050s in the quarter mile,

and this is number nine on the list.

So we're going to go through the, the, the top eight here.

And now we're getting into some,

these are some incredibly fast cars.

I mean, we're running 10s in the quarter mile now.

Like that was in the nineties when we were buying,

you know, Mustangs and Cameros.

Like that was unheard of, you know.

Yeah.

You know, like if you could,

you get your Mustang into the, you know, the high 13s,

you're like, car feels fast.

Like now these things,

you just buy them that run 10s.

Yeah.

All right.

Eight on the list, Corvette Z06.

So it's a slight,

actually a little slower to the quarter mile,

but a little quicker all the way around.

Yeah.

Which makes sense.

Right.

I mean, you know, the, the, the E-Rate,

because it's got all wheel drive,

it's going to be faster off the line.

Z06 is probably going to,

I think it probably tires a little bit more aggressive as well.

It's going to corner a little bit harder.

So that, that all makes,

it's kind of where you'd expect it to be,

just a little bit faster, but not much.

Seven is Porsche 911 Turbo S,

but this is the 2022 model.

We've got a new one coming up.

That'll be exciting as well.

Not only has this car going to get faster,

it's going to get significantly more expensive.

Yeah.

The new one over the previous one.

It's gone from being a apartment to a house.

Yeah, it really has.

But the Turbo S, which the Turbo S,

I know people always talk about the GT cars.

That's where the money is.

That's where the resell is.

But just talk about the all around

one of the greatest cars to drive every day.

You can put it on the freeway

and have it be docile

and make a phone call or whatever,

and then just put it in beast mode.

And it's just sort of,

when you switch it from like normal

to like whatever sport sport plus mode,

it's kind of a Jekyll and Hyde moment.

Like it just comes alive.

And it was just one of the things

I always loved about the Turbo S.

I was like a 997,

which is what three generations ago now.

I think you can get a stick turbo version

of that car would be,

is a great buy at the moment.

They're still, I wouldn't say they're affordable,

but I think that if you want to invest in something,

the last manual Turbo 911, the 997,

would be a great buy.

Yeah, I agree.

All right, six on the list.

McLaren 750 S, one of my favorite cars of all time.

I absolutely love driving the McLaren,

the 720 and 750.

This thing ran the quarter mile in 9.9 seconds.

And, you know, it sounds good,

looks good, feels good.

It's just, it's an animal of a car.

I enjoy that car.

Agreed.

765 LT.

Yeah, I mean, these two are running the same time,

but the 750 remember was basically a facelifted version

of the 720,

which borrowed a lot from the 765.

Yeah.

And I think the, you know,

they're looking at the 750 launch better.

So it's a bit faster at the quarter.

And then all the, but yeah, those were,

but I guess this is,

I mean, now we're at number five,

and this is where it gets interest in the ZR1

because the 765 LT,

well, there's half a million bucks.

I can't remember when they were new.

Are they even more than that?

Depending on how you got it trimmed up

and how much carbon fiber you had on it.

Yeah, yeah.

Sounds about right.

750 up to those levels as well.

You know, these are not supercars.

This is into hypercar territory.

This is, you know, this is,

this isn't McLaren's entry level.

This is McLaren's like super sports car.

So that's at five.

Then we get into,

this is where I think,

then you get into your EVs.

Now, you know, the EVs are just faster, really.

They're just the performance, the accessibility.

So Tesla Model S Plaid,

what's that, 9.4 for the quarter?

That is so quick.

9.4, so that's 1.2 seconds faster to the quarter

than the McLaren 765 LT.

Yeah, that is so fast.

All right, number three on the list.

There she is, the 2025 Corvette ZR1.

Now we're looking at the list going,

number three, that's interesting,

but this thing was so fast,

10 seconds flat to the quarter mile,

you know, no hybrid, no electric motors,

rear wheel drive, not all wheel drive,

just a well sorted beast of a vehicle.

Absolutely.

And if you look,

if what that was to give the game away,

if you look at number two,

which was the Taycan Turbo GT.

All right, there it is.

There it is.

You know, massively faster to the quarter,

9.3 versus 10,

but actually only a 10th up across the line,

which just shows how good that Chevy is

at stopping, cornering.

And again, the Porsche's all wheel drive,

you know, it's got a lot of traction out

of what is a relatively slow corner.

So for the ZR1 to basically catch it,

so, by the way, 0.7 of a second,

we worked out like you're talking,

that's car lengths at that kind of speed.

Oh yeah.

Not just behind, that's car lengths behind it.

I mean, so, you know, you'll make,

from going for the brakes,

you're making up a huge amount of time

over the, you know, be fun to put them side by side

because, you know, you would see the Porsche miles ahead

and then the Chevy just catch it through the corner

and then, you know, back along the straightaway.

So, you know, I mean, that's a mighty fast,

you know, just 26.9, just a 10th of a second

outside what we did in the Porsche.

And to be honest, the ZR1 in some ways

was easier to get a time out of.

That Porsche is actually quite a handful.

Yeah.

But not still number one.

Number one, this one still surprises me.

Number one on the list,

Lucid Air Sapphire.

And this is just,

just shooting a bullet out of a gun.

And then I don't, I mean,

you know, what's the air sapphire?

1,000 horsepower as well?

1,200.

1,200 horsepower.

For this car in its size and its weight,

you know, and I still have questions like,

what tires was it on?

How many Gs did it pull in the turn?

But it was on their sport tires.

So it was basically,

I think there might have been Trofeo RS.

So it's on a very aggressive tire.

Yeah.

And this was a, you know,

this was a big deal for them.

This is a $250,000 car, right?

This is a $250,000, of course,

it's a ZR1 pretty much by the time you've got it optioned up.

It's, I mean, that's a staggering time.

And I guess the big debate that we have at the end of the film

is the ZR1X is coming out,

which is the ZR1 with a

uprated version of the e-raise hybrid system.

Right.

Now you've got all-wheel drive.

Now you've got 1,200,

I think it's 1,250 horsepower.

And a bit of low-end torque off the line.

Low-end torque.

So it's going to be way faster off the line.

You look at how good the e-raise is,

you're going to have more torque off the line,

more torque and more traction coming out to the corner,

a little bit more weight.

So we were put a lot more power.

So we were kind of figuring,

we were trying to figure out like, you know,

the old, you know,

the sort of simple maths is,

okay, you've got to gain a second.

Do you gain a second?

Yeah.

And I think it's got a very, very good chance

because the e-raise is significantly faster,

you know, isn't faster than the ZR1 to the quarter,

but it's faster than the ZO6.

It's definitely got more traction off the line.

And then, you know, it's going to have,

I think it's going to be mighty close.

I don't think it's got like a second,

I don't think it's going to find a second and a half,

but I think it can find a second.

Yeah.

So it's the big thing that we said in our press release

that went with this is

ZR1 fastest gas car we've ever tested,

fastest pure gas car we've ever tested,

no hybrid, no oil drive, rear wheel drive.

And, you know, it's faster than a,

it's faster than a plaid.

It's almost as fast as the Taycan turbo GT.

It's an amazing result.

It's fantastic.

All right.

So let's, let's speculate.

Let's take a little guess here.

If you had a guess where

the Ford Mustang GTD

would fall onto this leaderboard, you know,

and some compared to some of these cars underpowered,

some of them it's more, but, you know,

knowing what we know about it's ring time.

Yeah.

It's kind of interesting.

I don't think you guys have had a chance to get a GTD out.

We do to test it imminently actually,

but it to run the numbers.

There was a couple of reasons why it was delayed to us,

so this is a fair question.

It's not like you guys did it and I'm setting it up

and you know the numbers.

You don't know the numbers.

This is pure speculation.

I must have got 800 horsepower.

I mean, if you go back to GT 500, which is,

what is that in our list?

GT 500 was 11th on the list.

So that's 11th on the list.

So it's going to, it's going to be faster than GT 500.

Yeah.

It's got more power and, you know,

almost sophisticated suspension, aero,

which should help a little bit through the corner,

but also help under braking.

It's a relatively low speed corner,

so aero isn't that, isn't that bigger deal?

So how, what are we at 32?

Yeah.

I'm going to get one in my head.

So before you say it,

I've got a number in my head on this list.

So you go.

What do you think?

I think it's,

I think it's somewhere around number seven.

I think it's somewhere around the 911 Turbo S.

Okay.

I was thinking it was going to split the McLaren.

It's like somewhere around fifth, sixth, you know,

but, you know, I think it's going to,

with that much tire and that suspension being so good.

You're right, actually.

It could be the weight.

I was thinking about weight.

And transaxle in the back.

Yeah.

It might be right, Matt.

I might be being a bit, I might be being a bit.

You're right.

I think it's, I think it's, you could be right.

I think it's going to be somewhere between fifth and seventh,

I reckon.

Yeah.

So I kind of think it's kind of in that, in that range.

It's a lovely car to drive.

And I, it's impressive.

And when I got into it, you know, being a Mustang fan,

I was like, I get it.

It's like one of the hopped up Mustangs that you can get in the

aftermarket or something, right?

You know, you can go to Shelby American or something and get,

you know, a 900 horsepower Mustang.

But once you drive it, you're like, this is nothing like that

at all.

This is, this is a different vehicle in Mustang skin,

Mustang dashboard, right?

Anyway, I'd love to see it up there.

Super interesting list.

I'm curious to know, I don't think you recall,

but the Lucid, it did have the good tires on it,

but what kind of jeez was it pulling in the turn?

Because it's a big car, heavy car.

I mean, it wasn't pulling 1.38 like the ZR1.

It wasn't putting 1.38, but I can't remember what the figure was,

but it was a lot.

Yeah.

Just because that car is, it's not just about having big tires

and everything else.

It's really well sorted.

I mean, they've done a really good engineering job with it.

The other thing I should say, I know we've got to wrap it in a moment,

but the other thing is, if you go to at Weaver on cars,

on my own Instagram channel, I actually ran the,

I did a run with a GoPro basically on my forehead.

So it's like a driver's eye view.

So yeah, I'm sure you'll check that out.

It didn't, it hasn't got as much attention as I thought.

I actually thought people enjoy that kind of,

and it gives you a sense of how bumpy the surface is

and how violent everything is and also how much your brain

does to compute all that stuff.

It's kind of amazing.

Cause you know, you're just focused on driving,

but it is kind of staggering how much your brain is dealing with

everything that's going on around it.

So I think you should check that out as well.

All right.

So we're going to wrap things up before I do.

We just got to take a look at one more time

at this photo right here.

Oh, Jesus.

Yeah.

I was tight.

If you watch the video,

I can, and Jonathan actually calls it out in the car.

Like Alistair seems a bit hyped about like,

it seems a bit like excited or something.

Cause Jonathan's an engineer and he's, you know,

he's pretty, he's pretty straight up.

The adrenaline was flowing.

Yeah.

It was a super fun video to watch,

to see how excited you were doing it.

And some of the clips you put up on social media as well

are fun.

So I appreciate you sharing that this,

despite some of the slight level of embarrassment you might,

feel don't, it's good.

You got to drive that car and race that car,

the Udrags video against an inflatable chicken.

If you're not excited by,

by a car like that, then there's something wrong.

So.

Right.

It seems like it's a,

one of those very rare experiences,

like the cool car.

So what you guys are doing that in the Udrags videos,

fun.

Definitely watch the Udrag videos that you can find them

on the Edmonds YouTube channel.

And listen,

I know it's getting to be end of the day for you out

there in the UK as we wrap up the morning here.

So have a good trip and you know,

good luck and we'll see you next week.

Maybe we'll have some LA auto show,

maybe just like a brief recap.

I don't know how many details.

Well, I've done the LA old show by Tommy Meats.

Yeah, but we'll just,

it'll just be like the day before we record.

So I don't know,

we'll have to parse through all of the notes and everything,

but we'll,

we'll definitely have some things to talk about for LA auto

show, which is good because that show goes on for a week

or two.

How long has it showed the public aspect of the show?

It's like 10 days or something.

It's plenty of time to go down there and get tickets

and see that event.

So awesome.

All right.

Have a good trip and until next time,

keep the air and the spare and the bag and the wheel.

Mariette Bonvoy is the official hotel partner of US

soccer.

Join Mariette Bonvoy today to get closer to the game

with exclusive perks, unforgettable experiences

and benefits that go beyond the pitch.

Spring Hill Suites, part of Mariette Bonvoy,

offers complimentary hot breakfast and spacious

all-sweet accommodations perfect for the whole team

with room for up to six guests.

Make your next getaway a win.

Learn more at springhillsuites.mariette.com

CarCast+Edmunds - Just how fast is the new Corvette ZR1?

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